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The Influence of Land Use on the Abundance and Diversity of Ammonia Oxidizers

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Abstract

Nitrification plays a significant role in soil nitrogen cycling, a process in which the first step can be catalyzed by ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) and ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB). In this study, six soil samples with distinct land-use regimes (forestland soil, paddy soil, wheat-planted soil, fruit-planted soil, grassland soil, and rape-planted soil) were collected from Chuzhou city in the Anhui province to elucidate the effects of land use on the abundance and diversity of AOA and AOB. The abundance of the archaeal amoA gene ranged from 2.12 × 104 copies per gram of dry soil to 2.57 × 105 copies per gram of dry soil, while the abundance of the bacterial amoA gene ranged from 5.58 × 104 copies per gram of dry soil to 1.59 × 108 copies per gram of dry soil. The grassland and the rape-planted soil samples maintained the highest abundance of the bacterial and archaeal amoA genes, respectively. The abundance of the archaeal amoA gene was positively correlated with the pH (P < 0.05). The ammonia concentrations exhibited a significantly positive relation with the abundance of the bacterial amoA gene (P < 0.01) and the number of OTUs of AOB (P < 0.05). The community composition of AOB was more sensitive to the land-use regimes than that of AOA. The data obtained in this study may be useful to better understand the nitrification process in soils with different land-use regimes.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Ministry of Water Resources’ Special Funds for Scientific Research on Public Causes (201201026), National Natural Science Foundation of China (41371098), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2014T70470, 2014M561568) and Jiangsu Planned Projects for Postdoctoral Research Funds (1401093C).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Hydrology-Water Resources and Hydraulic Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing, 210098, China

    Dayong Zhao

  2. College of Hydrology and Water Resources, Hohai University, Nanjing, 210098, China

    Dayong Zhao, Juan Luo, Jianqun Wang, Rui Huang, Kun Guo & Yi Li

  3. State Key Laboratory of Lake Science and Environment, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, 210008, China

    Qinglong L. Wu

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  1. Dayong Zhao
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Correspondence to Dayong Zhao.

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Dayong Zhao and Juan Luo have contributed equally to this work.

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Zhao, D., Luo, J., Wang, J. et al. The Influence of Land Use on the Abundance and Diversity of Ammonia Oxidizers. Curr Microbiol 70, 282–289 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-014-0714-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-014-0714-5

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